Target

Next month, Public Art Fund is installing a giant text piece by Martin Creed in Brooklyn Bridge Park. This will be one of three text-based sculptures in the area when it opens. What is up with New York’s love of big, single words?

Remember NADA’s legendary pool parties at the Deauville? There always seemed to be at least two art-bros who showed up in the same “statement” bathing suit from American Apparel. But it’s usually more awkward when gallerists inadvertently dress their booths too similarly.

Below, we take a look at accidental twinsies and judge who wore it better:

How do you infuse life into a zombie art fair? Ask Pulse Director Helen Toomer. She’s been in the unenviable position of having to clean up years of poor leadership at Pulse, and has miraculously achieved some success during her two-year tenure. The fair’s put together PERSPECTIVES, an impressive discussion series put together in partnership with Hyperallergic and has slowly but slowly pushing some of the long time, weaker exhibitors out of the fair. Meanwhile, Pulse has succeeded in bringing strong exhibitors into the fold like Monya Rowe, Yancey Richardson and Transfer. Great strides have been made.

California governor’s proposed budget would halve their arts funding. This, after having boosted arts funding last year by 5 million. Apparently this decline is a surprise to no one, since last year’s funding boom was declared a one time thing. [Hyperallergic]

Steven Soderbergh decided to re-cut 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now it is only 110 minutes. [Extension 765]

The nominations are in for the Oscars; let the betting begin! Until February 22, 2015, prepare to read about nothing else. [The Daily Beast, NPR, Flavorwire]

A review of Faye Driscoll’s dance performance, Thank You for Coming: Attendance from Benjamin Sutton. The performance, which melds shared experience and images, starts off strong, but becomes hard to follow in the last scene when the references become unclear. [Hyperallergic]

Pies and Thighs, the Williamsburg spot for pies and fried chicken, takes Manhattan. Now with doughnuts! [Grub Street]

An undercover federal agent posed as a Silk Road admin and made $1,000 a week in bitcoin. No word on whether he got to keep the money. [Motherboard]

On Amazon’s dog culture, by an insane woman who does not like dogs. [The Awl]

There goes experimentation on the Upper East Side (or, at least, it falls more to Higher Pictures and Venus Over Manhattan). Alex Zachary Peter Currie, the converted duplex gallery of Gavin Brown protegé Alex Zachary, reports that it’s “winding down operations over the next month and will not reopen.” They last told Gallerist that they were looking for a space in Harlem. [GalleristNY]

This explains a lot: The New York Times exposes Twitter’s underbelly of fake accounts dealings, helping us understand why people get 20,000 new followers overnight. They’re “now getting into the retweet business.” [The New York Times]

Estée Lauder deepens its relationship with the Met. In a move compared to the Rockefellers, and the Annenbergs, Leonard A. Lauder has promised the museum his billion-dollar Cubist collection, said to be one of the greatest in the world. Incredibly, Lauder tells the Times that when he began his collection forty years ago, “a lot was still available, because nobody really wanted it.” [NYTimes]

Target deepens its relationship with art. Target, already a major supporter or the Walker and MoMA’s “Target” Free Fridays, now sponsors MoMA’s educational programs. [MoMA]